By By MARY-ALLISON LANCASTER – Managing editor
A man was charged with animal cruelty after investigators with the Escambia County Humane Society found 13 animals chained and contained in nailed plywood boxes at a vacant home in East Brewton. A deposition hearing has been set for Friday morning.
Acting on a tip received several months ago, animal cruelty investigator Renee Jones said that Calvin Green has been charged with animal cruelty.
According to Jones, Green had moved from his home in East Brewton and left seven grown dogs, four puppies, a raccoon and a chicken chained and withheld from sufficient shelter and with only minimal water, causing the animals to react with vicious behavior. However, two of the grown dogs, Jones said, had not been chained and had &#8220sweet temperaments.” Jones said that Green had allegedly been visiting the home once a day to feed and provide water for the animals.
According to Jones, one of the dogs had been chained with an orange electrical cord wrapped around its neck, while a female dog, who had given birth to a litter of puppies, had been chained in such a way that she couldn't lie down. When Jones said she arrived on the scene, several of the puppies were dead.
Jones said she believed they had died due to lack of warmth and nutrition since the mother couldn't adequately provide for her puppies. However, Jones said she couldn't prove that was how the puppies had died.
Jones said that one of the animals at some point had gotten tangled in the chain and a &#8220bunch of junk” and had cut its hind leg, possibly on a piece of tin. After further investigation, it was found that the dog's hamstring had been severed to the bone.
Two of the puppies, a German shepherd and a Chihuahua, were being kept at the home in plywood box nailed shut.
Jones said that chaining dogs without socializing often them turns them into vicious animals. According to statistics from the Humane Society of the United States, chaining or tethering a dog is defined as &#8220the practice of fastening a dog to a stationary object or stake, usually in the owner's backyard, as a means of keeping the animal under control. These terms do not refer to the periods when an animal is walked on a leash.”
While there is no law in the state of Alabama that bans chaining an animal, Jones and the HSUS highly recommend against it. According to a study published in 2002 in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, it was reported that 17 percent of dogs involved in fatal attacks on humans between 1979 and 1998 were restrained on their owners' property at the time of the attack.